Jewish group honors mayor

Alicia Robinson

Newport Beach City Councilman Steve Bromberg and his wife, Ronnie,

were honored last week for their commitment to the community by the

Jewish National Fund, a nonreligious, nonpolitical organization in

Newport Beach that raises money for infrastructure in Israel.

“[Steve Bromberg] was the first Jewish mayor of Newport Beach,

which was a big thing for us in Orange County, and he has supported

us off and on over the last few years, and we just really respect

what he’s done,” Jewish National Fund spokeswoman Lisa Grajewski

said.

The Brombergs were given the Guardian of Israel award at a Nov. 7

dinner emceed by actor Hal Linden.

Congressman’s site gets extreme makeover

Visitors to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s website got a pleasant

surprise Tuesday, when the site’s extreme makeover was revealed. The

old site often went unchanged for days or weeks, and viewers were met

with a bland list of headlines about recent legislation introduced by

the congressman, who represents Costa Mesa.

“We’ve been trying to polish it up, give it a more contemporary

look,” Rohrabacher spokesman Aaron Lewis said. “We were kind of stuck

in 1998 mode.”

Rohrabacher’s staff members have been working on fixing up the

site for the last two months. It’s more interactive, and it now

features more pictures, a search engine for legislation, and even a

kids’ page with education links to the CIA, the National Zoo and

other sites.

DeVore creates

personal ‘DeBlog’

If you were curious about the innermost thoughts and day-to-day

experiences of a just-elected state assemblyman, your wondering days

are over. Assemblyman-elect Chuck DeVore, who will represent Newport

Beach, has joined the countless ranks in cyberspace who run blogs, or

Web logs -- online journals where people post their thoughts on

anything and everything, and in some cases readers can respond.

DeVore’s website recently added a “blog DeVore” feature including

his reflections on a postelection trip to Sacramento. If he’s

anything like his predecessor, John Campbell, who will move to the

state Senate in January, DeVore’s now-small blog is sure to grow.

Campbell sends out his thoughts to constituents and the media in a

weekly e-mail newsletter.

Putting another

nail in El Toro

The El Toro airport idea may be politically dead, but a group that

lobbied against it wants to make sure it’s buried.

The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority led opposition to the plan to

shift commercial air travel from John Wayne Airport to the closed El

Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The group on Wednesday announced

Orange County supervisors will consider rescinding two environmental

reports that support an El Toro airport.

The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority promised to drop pending

litigation over the airport issue if supervisors rescind the reports.

County supervisors will vote on rescinding the environmental reports

at a meeting Tuesday.

Cox happy to stay home after recent appointments

After the domino-like series of resignations by President Bush’s

top administrators this week, the positions were rapidly filled, and

Rep. Chris Cox was again not selected for any other office, despite

recent speculations by New York Times columnist William Safire and

the Los Angeles Times.

Cox, who has been Newport Beach’s congressman since 1988, has been

suggested for several other positions and came close to a seat on the

9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001.

“He’s been mentioned a number of times for various positions, but

my sense is that it’s his choice to stay in the House,” UC Irvine

political scientist Louis DeSipio said.

Cox hasn’t lost sleep over past speculations and was somewhat

dismissive when discussing them this week.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m not going to be secretary of

agriculture or secretary of commerce,” he said. “That’s a great

relief to me that I’m not going to have to get mentioned for all

those things that I’m not going to get hired for anyway.”